Her arms drifted up from her sides and one by one she held them out, pressing the palms of her hands against the glassy, wet sides of the closet.
A sudden piercing light illuminated an image.
Knees to knees.
Arms out.
Hands pressed against the slippery closet walls.
Their fingers inched toward each other’s—
With a sucking sound and a flap of a black-and-red shirt, the girl tilted backwards and up and away, hurtling out of Emma’s sight.
She fell to the ground with a thud and rolled into a tight ball, spinning in a circle across a wooden floor.
She covered her ears.
And squeezed her head.
A sudden silence and darkness . . .
She lay in a heap and panted and trembled . . .
. . . and listened as someone yelled and pounded his fists on the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Sonnet
2015
The pounding stopped. The door squeaked open. I dropped my chin to my chest as hands reached in, dragging me out of the closet. I quivered against the wall.
“Sonnet?”
In front of me stood my brother, my wonderful, funny, much-loved brother. “Evan! Was that you beating on the door?”
He knelt and put his arms around me. “Yup, that was us.” Behind him stood my grinning sister and cousins. And Rapp.
Evan shouted his incorrigible laughter and towed me up so that I could stand. Jules and Lia held my hands as everyone pressed close.
I leaned my head back on Evan’s shoulder. “I’ve been gone—”
“We know,” said Jules. “We’ve been trying to get you back. We found your letters.”
Evan said, “We’ve all been so crazed—”
“Emma has been here with us.” said Niki. “She was you.”
“And I was her.”
“We have so much to tell you,” said Lia.
Rapp stood behind Niki and watched me with Tor’s eyes. My gaze skid away. “Is that a tin soldier, Niki?”
“Keko, our friend, found it way in the back of a fireplace grate.”
“We found this, too.” Rapp held out an old photo. In the image, Jacob and Miles sat on a bench clutching tin soldiers. Noticing something almost out of camera range, they had turned their blurry heads, watching Thorn’s hand raking my neck.
“That happened just yesterday. My brothers, Jacob and Miles. They were terrified. And then she took their hands and dragged them off the bench and away from me. I never saw them again.” I lifted my head from Evan’s shoulder and put my hands over my face. I felt myself falling.
Rapp stepped forward and caught me. As he spun me away and through the house, my brother, sister, and cousins raced behind us across the mansion’s old wooden floors. And then there was something else.
Tight in the grace of Rapp’s arms, I could hear the echo of my own footsteps, running down this hallway in love and in hate.
Two weeks ago, before I had even traveled, I’d felt myself in 1895, living in that year already, sensing Tor already. That day. I was remembering my own memories before I had even made them. Because this house had kept me a part of the mystery—the life—it had cradled forever within its walls. This house had known me.
THE crow on the roof cried out as Lia slammed the old door shut behind us. Rapp set me down on slippery pine needles and held me tight to his side, just as the sun poked out between tumbling, blowy clouds. In a tight band, we moved away from the closet, away from the house and down the hill, away from the dark, silent forest of Monte Cristo.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Emma
1895
Emma dropped her chin to her chest and shut her eyes as two sets of hands reached in, helping her out of the closet. She could smell fresh mountain air and lemon oil. She could smell the sweet cedar aroma of the new lumber used to build the Sweetwine house three years ago. She was home.
“Miss Emma?”
She raised her head and squinted. In front of her stood Kerry and the family carriage driver. They lifted her up and smiled down at the turquoise shoes on her feet as if they were greeting an old friend.
Her room had changed. Wooden trunks sat together under the windows, new garments filling them to the brim. Her brass bed blocked the doorway.
“Emma!” Her father walloped his fists on the door. “Answer me!”
“I need to tell you many things before you see him,” Kerry whispered close to her ear.
She longed to crawl into her big, beautiful bed, but there were a few things that remained undone. With all her strength, she called out. “Yes, I am now changing my clothes. I will be down momentarily, Father. Please take your leave of my door. I will come to the study to speak to you there.”
“I will be waiting, Emma.”
Maxwell and Kerry heaved the bed back to its original position. Before Maxwell could leave, Emma took his arm. “Whatever your hand has been in this day, and indeed these two weeks, thank you, Maxwell.”
“It’s good to have you back, miss. Many things have changed since your disappearance. Mostly for the best, I wager, as long as you remain strong.”
He tipped his black-and-blue-checked cap and slipped out the door, treading softly toward the kitchen staircase.
“Tell me what I need to know, Kerry.”
So, Kerry spoke to her about the last weeks, of all the shocks and truths and reckonings, while she wound around, removing Sonnet’s wet clothing from Emma’s shaking body and helping her into a dress. She brushed out Emma’s hair, still wet with rain, and went to tie it with a bow.
With a gentle movement, Emma took the brush from Kerry’s hands. “No, please, leave it down as is today.”
And with the understanding now of her parentage, a kind of peace cuddled down around Emma’s shoulders, as if an angel had draped her in a cloak of tenderness and had sung her the sweet melody of a forgotten mother’s love.
EMMA settled onto the couch. The rain had stopped, and the sun peeked through dark clouds that were lumbering away from Monte Cristo to another place beyond the mountain town. Her brothers laughed and played in some remote part of the house, and Cook whistled and brought the midday meal down the hallway to the dining room on her large silver tray. Emma could smell dill and warm rye bread. Nothing had changed, yet everything had changed.
Emma’s mother—no, her aunt!—struggled in through the study door as her father tried to shut it.
“My daughter and I will speak alone, Rose. This matter is between Emma and me now. I will not allow you to insert yourself.”
“Emma is my—”
“Is your what, Rose? Tell me. What is she to you?” Her father spoke softly, with care, while Rose stood her ground in the doorway, her hands braced on the wood against her husband’s weight. She was like a terrible storm that touches down and causes great havoc, just to blow from the muddle moments later, caring not about the damage left behind. Emma wondered if Rose beheld her dead sister as they stared at each other and if that vision was what caused Rose to finally coil away.
“Please, dear. Leave us.” Emma’s father was gentle with her, his voice full of pity. It was the pity that did it. Instead of angry passion, her father treated her as one would treat a wayward pet dog or a small, stubborn child. And when his passion fled, Rose no longer held the power. Her delicate beauty and flirty nature could no longer sway.
Rose dropped her arms and pressed them hard against her silk dress.
This sad person, trying to force her way into the library and eternally stand in the way of a relationship between her and her father, was finally out of Emma’s head. Rose could hurt her no more.
Her father closed the door. Instead of retreating behind his desk, he brought a smaller chair and placed it in front of her. He sat down and held her hands.
“I’m sorry I worried you, Father.”
“What is done is done. I am glad now that you have returned.”
“I
can’t stay here, but I do not want to go away as far as Baltimore.”
“We sent for numerous brochures. The institutions vary in location and, in fact, there is one from Seattle. Would that please you? I will give them to you to read. Your education will be for you to choose now, Emma. I will follow your judgment in this matter.”
“Thank you. Will you be okay?”
“Okay?”
She smiled. “I meant, will you be fine?” She would make mistakes like this. “I hope you do not suffer because of me. With her.”
He pinched the end of his moustache and sighed. “Rose and I will come to an agreement satisfactory to all. She is a good mother to my sons, and I have all the confidence she will continue to show them the affection a child deserves. But she was never a good mother to you, Emma. I want to sincerely apologize for that again. I hope you believe me when I say I am truly sorry. There will be changes, you will see.”
“This means everything to me.”
The clock chimed once. It was time to join the family around the dining room table.
“You will come dine with us, then?’
“No, Father. I wish to retire to my room now.”
Purple stains shadowed his eyes, and lines feathered his forehead and mouth. His usual ramrod back slumped. He seemed as weary as Emma. She leaned forward and put her arms around his neck, comforted by the familiar smell of lime shaving cream. She brushed her lips across his cheek and felt him stiffen. It was not their way. But perhaps she could slowly change their way and bring the love she had been privileged to learn about into this cold house.
Alone, without hands or help from friends, Emma climbed the staircase and walked the long corridor to her room for the second time that day. She pushed her bedroom door shut, threw off her clothes, and climbed into bed.
Tor. Emma would wear a disguise and walk all the way to his cabin tomorrow if that was what it took to be with him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Sonnet
2015
Lia put her head around the bedroom door. “Finally. We’ve been waiting like crazy for you to come back to us.”
I sat up and stretched. I’d woken to find myself in Lia’s bedroom, lying in the bed we shared every summer when my family came home to Seattle for our yearly vacation. I had started teasing her when we were both thirteen that it was about time for the white canopy to go. We weren’t little princesses anymore. Maybe turning fifteen in another month would finally inspire her. But she had so far resisted.
Lia sat down on the edge of the bed and held out a peanut butter and jam sandwich and a glass of milk. “Just for you.”
“How did you know I’d be starving?” I held the plate to my nose and sniffed blackberries.
“Because you’ve been asleep for over twenty-four hours. Evan wanted to come in here and wake you this morning. I had to fight him off. Even Rapp has been moping around, waiting for you to come alive.”
“Where is everybody?”
“We told Mom and Dad you were sick. Everyone has been leaving you alone, just doing their own thing. We didn’t want it to seem suspicious. They never knew what happened, Sonnet. We just substituted Emma for you. If my parents had found out, they would have called your parents, and then your parents would have gotten on a plane and come back, and everything would have gotten so complicated. Like it wasn’t already. We just had to figure it out ourselves with the help of Rapp’s Uncle Jack and Uncle Jack’s psychic friend and a time travel-believing professor.”
“Good thinking.” The words stuck together in my peanut butter mouth as I thought of the help I had gotten on the other end. I knew I would speak about it all someday. Just not this day.
“We’ve been dying to talk to you,” Lia said.
“Yeah, I want to know what happened.”
“It was so insane. Nobody knew what was going on at first.”
“That’s the way it was for us, too.”
“Us?”
“Me and my friends there. One of them was Kerry the nanny. She was my you.”
Lia plucked at the duvet cover. “Emma slept in here instead of you. You’d think it would have been weird, but it really wasn’t. It was like you were still here.”
I drank down the rest of the milk, never taking my eyes off her face.
“This whole thing is pretty outrageous, isn’t it?” said Lia, finally.
“Yeah.” I set the glass down. “I need to take a shower. You have no idea how much I’ve been wanting that.”
Aunt Kate opened the door. “Sonnet . . . you’re finally awake. How are you feeling?”
“Better.”
“Well, you were sick and sleeping two weeks ago, too. And then you were sad. Should I worry about you?”
Lia, standing behind Aunt Kate, mouthed the word Emma.
“I’m all good now. I promise, I’m back to being me.”
She checked out my black-and-red shirt and big jeans leg sticking out of the covers and frowned. “Why are you sleeping with those clothes on?”
“Just cold. I’m gonna go jump in the shower.”
“Good. You really look like you need one. We’re leaving for Grandpa’s in less than an hour. Here, hand me the plate and glass. I’ll see you two downstairs.”
Lia waited for the door to close. “Dinner at Grandpa’s for your last night. You guys are leaving tomorrow.”
I got out of bed and stretched and yawned. “Back just in time. I feel great. We can talk more when I get out of the shower.”
“Sure. Whose clothes are those, anyway?”
“Tor’s. I wore them for my escape.”
“Well, that’s gotta be a story.”
“Most definitely.”
“Emma told us about Tor. Such a coincidence about him and Rapp. I guess they even look alike. You should have seen her face when she saw him. Like seeing a ghost. I thought she was going to fall over.”
“I can only imagine. I know I acted pretty strange when I first saw Tor. I’ll be right back.”
I swung my hair to the side and put my face close to the bathroom mirror, running my finger along the purple line. The fourteen tiny marks along the sides of the scar where the thread had been were almost gone. Doctor Withers had done a good job. I had to give him that.
The handprint across my cheek had disappeared and the scab on my lip was smaller now, but I would always have the scar on my forehead.
Tor’s jeans and shirt lay in a heap on the floor where I dropped them. I took the browned and crinkled rosebud from the jeans’ pocket and set it aside. I would press the Mystery Mine rose between the pages of a book and keep it as a memory. I slid Tor’s belt out of the loops and ran it through my hands, touching the tattered hole where he had worn the plain metal buckle. I lifted it to my nose and breathed in the leather smell. The smell of him. I set it back on the pile.
“I promise I will appreciate having a shower until the day I die,” I said to the heavenly stream of just-the-right-temperature water as it ran down my back and shoulders. Instead of rubbing a foul bar of soap on my head, I squeezed silky coconut shampoo into my hair.
Ahhh. Divine.
Except for the scar on my forehead and the jeans, shirt, belt, and rosebud lying on the floor next to the tub, the last remnants of my 1895 life ran down my body and swirled around the drain, leaving me to start living my 2015 life once again.
“HEY, kids.” Grandpa grabbed at the five of us and kissed the tops of our heads as we walked by him into the house. Another summer and Evan would probably be leaning over him, kissing the top of his head.
The last one through the door, I burrowed my face into Grandpa’s blue sweatshirt and circled my arms around his waist. He smelled like his usual peppermint mixed with lasagna tonight—his specialty since Grandma died. The sharp smell of garlic bread wafted through the old Victorian house he had lived in practically his whole life. Doing the exact opposite, his son, my father, had lived all over the world as a diplomat, never settling anywhere for very l
ong. It occurred to me for the first time that those two things might somehow be related—reverse lives, balancing each other out, sharing in the knowledge. “Grandpa, I love you so, so much.”
“You haven’t left yet, my sweet Sonnet. Let’s not get sad until tomorrow, or you’ll have me crying in my wine tonight.”
“Hey, what’s this? Everybody’s down? Is it a full moon or something?” Uncle Vince came up the stairs and headed to the kitchen carrying a cooler full of pop.
“Come on,” said Niki. “Let’s go out to the yard and play bocce ball.”
We made a circle on the grass. In the distance, a ferry slowly plowed through Elliot Bay, making its way toward downtown Seattle from Bainbridge Island.
Jules said, “So tell us what happened, Sonnet.”
“I don’t even know where to start.”
“Just start talking,” said Niki.
“Well, I was dragged out of the closet on the other side of time. I was hurt pretty badly. Stuff had fallen on my head and knocked me out.” I showed them the scar. “A nasty doctor came and gave me some bitter medicine that basically paralyzed me. Then he put seven stitches in my head. They threw me in bed for two days, and I stayed delirious with the medicine they kept forcing down me. I didn’t realize I was in 1895 until the afternoon I could finally get out of bed. And then I freaked out.”
“Emma told us about her life. Her father and two little brothers. Her hidden engagement to Tor. Her horrible mother. It sounded like she was super mean,” said Niki.
“Yeah,” said Evan. “In the photo, she was practically jerking your head off.”
“She’s insane with bitterness,” I said. “It turns out Emma’s mom is actually her aunt, her dead mom’s older sister. And her dad is still in love with her dead mom. And Rose, that’s the aunt’s name, can’t handle having a reminder of her husband’s love for her sister around the house. So, she beats up on Emma. If she was here, she’d probably get treatment for—I don’t know—anxiety or something. There, the bad thoughts are just left to bounce around in her head.”
But Not Forever Page 20
